Can Upgrade of JRE Cause Problem for Java Application

We are planning to develop an application for fire department use. It has to run on the desktop and have very high (99.5%) uptime. We have had problems with some of our Applet applications when the organization pushes new JRE updates. Are Java applications suseptible to the same problems?

I would like to say "no", because Java is supposed to be backward compatible.... However, with many many years of experience, I am still amazed with the ridiculous subtle issues that sometimes arise when anything get upgraded.

So, it would be a really good idea to test it first.

Dave Manley wrote:Are Java applications suseptible to the same problems?

Just in case my response is too subtle... Yes. All applications are susceptible to problems caused by upgrades -- including Java applications.

Henry

Look particularly through the code for boxing and un-boxing, use of "enum" as an identifier, etc. Don't recompile old classes if you can possibly help it.

An option that I've seen used rather effectively is including a jre with your application and providing batch files to start your programs that explicitly use the jre that you've included.